The farm grows fresh produce like swiss chard, blackberries and scallions for a low price. A bag of kale costs only $1 in a neighborhood where the closest supermarket – a few miles away – charges three times that.

Vikram Krishnamurthy, the Director of Programs for the Delaware Center for Horticulture, said that the urban farm has greatly expanded access to produce for neighborhood residents.

“It means that they don’t have to cross town to find fresh and healthy fruits and vegetables, or even cross Northeast Boulevard anymore,” he said.

The goal is to empower residents of the 11th street neighborhood to learn about urban farming and pick up some healthy groceries, said Ruth Arias, who teaches residents about food and gardening.

“A lot of people don’t know, when they see us harvesting carrots… that it does come out of the soil and it’s dirty and it has roots all over it,” said Arias.

Community residents can come visit the garden and small farmer’s market to buy produce every weekday morning.

According to The Delaware Center for Horticulture, there are over 20 urban farms and gardens in New Castle County. The Delaware Food and Urban Farms Coalition is working on creating a database that includes all of them

Darius Brown wants businesses to take advantage of open data and hopes to expand fintech opportunities in the city.

Councilman Darius Brown is known around town as the “tech councilman.” Wielding a nickname like that bears the burden of meeting high expectations held by the community you’re claiming to represent. In his two-and-a-half years on council, Brown has made some leeway in getting the city to adopt certain programs and practices implemented in larger cities.

“I’m always trying to advocate for the immersion of technology in how we govern and how we solve problems within city government,” Brown said. “I believe that our government should be integrated with those technologies.”

Like what?

Take ShotSpotter, for example. It’s the much buzzed-about gunshot location system that can pinpoint where a shot has been fired with precision. Brown said one of his current projects is trying to get city government to embrace that technology.

“We’re looking to use that technology to notify police officers while they’re out on patrol when shots are fired and where they’re fired,” Brown said. The technology allows officers to dispatch to their destination much more efficiently. “It’s a specific address and location that would tell them not only that you’re at 831 Northwestern, but it would also tell you that the shot was fired in the backyard.”

That’s what Brown is working on. But what has he done?

In late January, Brown and Mayor Dennis Williams launched Tweet My Jobs, a free social media platform designed to address unemployment in Wilmington by connecting potential job seekers with employers. According to Brown, over 3,800 individuals and 120 businesses have signed up. They’ve garnered a collective 60,000 views.

“We’ve had small mom-and-pop manufacturing companies like Franklin Fibre all the way to corporations like AstraZeneca,Starbucks and AT&T all on the site posting jobs, looking for employees here in the city of Wilmington,” he said.

It’s all about creating economic opportunity with Brown. That’s why he hopes businesses will start using city data to their advantage. “Open data is a resource that the city can use to cultivate more tech businesses, small business, entrepreneurship and grow our local economy,” he said.

But how? And why aren’t businesses doing it?

“I just don’t think the city infrastructure is in place where they have access to it to utilize it,” he said. At the same time, he said, “We have as much fiber running through our streets as Wall Street.” And with all of the banks that call Wilmington home, Brown said the city has an opportunity to become a leader in financial technology.

“We’re able to be the back office and handle the tech side of banks in our industry,” he said.

But most of all, Brown said Wilmington needs to do more around open data. A good model?

WILMINGTON – Members of city council called on Delaware Chief Justice Leo Strine to establish a community court in Wilmington, modeled after those in New York City and Newark, New Jersey.

Councilman Darius Brown said he and others have been pushing for the new lower court to be created for the last three years, but the proposal has not advanced.

“We need to attempt to harness the power of the justice system to address local problems as we have worked to established community policing with law enforcement officers,” Brown said.

Brown could not explain why the project has not advanced, saying he is hoping to meet with Strine in the coming weeks to get a better idea of what it will take to implement the court, aimed at providing social service programs to low level offenders instead of traditional fines or sentences.

“The goal of community court is to reduce recidivism without compromising public safety and to help non-violent offenders work towards a more successful and productive future.”

Mark Hitch, a court administrator, said Strine is committed to justice reinvestment in the city of Wilmington and is examining the feasibility of having a community court in a way that would benefit all city residents, not just one neighborhood near the court building.

“The first goal is we have to have a location,” Hitch said, adding that Strine is looking at the issues of racial disparities that exist int he state criminal justice system which is being examined by the Access of Justice Commission.

Hitch said the judiciary has looked at a few locations to move Justice of the Peace Court #20 into a new location with a community court. One of those possible locations is in Brown’s district, but Hitch said there are concerns that moving the court from its location in the Wilmington Public Safety Building downtown to the northeast section of the city will impact the accessibility of the court to all residents.

“(Strine) just wants to make sure that we examine all possibilities before jumping in,” Hitch said.

The court also has support from the community, said Jaehn Dennis, president of the Vandever Avenue Civic Association, who has assisted council members in the push for the court. Dennis said he saw how the system worked when visiting the community court in Newark, New Jersey.

“They have a solution,” Dennis said. “That is a solution that we need right here in the city of Wilmington.”

“Our young people in our community cannot afford to wait any longer,” said Councilman Justen Wright.

“Community courts have predominantly improved quality of life concerns, helped mitigate and curb the negative ethos painted by news media and reinstate a sense of community and worth,” Wright said.

Brown urged residents to contact Strine’s office to express their opinion about the courts in hopes that the action will urge him to hasten the process.

Contact Jenna Pizzi at jpizzi@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2837. Follow her on Twitter @JennaPizzi.

Wilmington Councilman Darius Brown discusses an EPA grant to train Wilmington residents with skills to pursue environmental careers. Seated (from left) are Sean Garvin, regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency; Marjorie Croft, director of the Division of Hazardous Waste for the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control; Paul Morris, assistant vice president of Workforce Development and Community Education at Delaware Technical Community College; and Paul Calistro, director of West End Neighborhood House.(Photo: JENNA PIZZI/THE NEWS JOURNAL)

“A key part to any community revitalization is an educated and trained workforce,” said Paul Morris, vice president of workforce development and community education at Delaware Tech.

Participants could be trained in roughly six months, according to West End Neighborhood House Executive Director Paul Calistro. The West End Neighborhood House is one of the coalition members that received an EPA grant and will distribute the funds.

Environmental Alliance Inc., Artesian Resources Corp., Tidewater Utilities Inc. and BrightFields Inc. have already committed to hiring some of the participants upon their graduation, Calistro added. Some of the jobs could pay as much as $14 per hour.

The grant was announced this week at the Wiley Cork Co. industrial site, a formerly contaminated property that was cleaned up with EPA funds. On hand for the announcement were Darius Brown, Wilmington city councilman; Sean Garvin, EPA regional administrator; and Marjorie Croft, director of the Division of Hazardous Waste at the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.

Funds were provided to the Wilmington-based Brownfields WorkForce Development and Job Training Coalition. Members of the coalition include Delaware Technical Community College and Brightfields.

Brown said the EPA’s investment will have a positive impact on residents’ lives and communities.

“By creating pathways out of poverty through education and employment, we are changing the life trajectory of citizens,” he added. “Better skills equal better pay.”

The West End Neighborhood House is one of only 19 organizations nationwide to receive a grant this year for an environmental training program. Communities affected by environmental issues are eligible to receive the funds to educate residents.

Wilmington 3rd District city councilman Darius Brown is using National Infrastructure Week to raise awareness of the importance of investing in the local and national infrastructure – despite tight budget times.

Brown led a tour of the 16th Street water filtration plant where nearly $60 million dollars has been spent recently on various capital improvements.

Two recent plant upgrades – state of the art microfiltration technology that removes contaminants and a renewable energy cogeneration facility that meets nearly 85% of the plant’s power needs –were highlighted, along with $7 million in upcoming improvements to the Brandywine River raceway – a 250 year-old means of diverting water from the river to the plant.

Brown says bringing attention to projects like these is imperative to ensure infrastructure spending remains a top priority of city officials.

“Also being able to educate the public on the necessity of it,” added Brown. “I think they understand the necessity of it when they can’t get water out of their faucet, but for many of them it’s really through events like this that they’re educated on what actually goes into this.”

Those improvements were funded by the city’s water and sewer fund – which is separate from the general fund – but Public Works Commissioner Jeff Starkey says other projects for electric and telecom grids, roads and bridges – require a different funding.

“We do a lot of asset management,” Starkey said. “We go through and take an inventory of what we have in place. And then we usually do a capital improvement project. Every two years we go to the bond market to try to fund some of these projects. And obviously some of your water rates are based on increases based on improvements that we do capital-wise.”

Capital improvements to roads, bridges, and electrical and telecommunications grids all must be sustained through comprehensive investments – a process that becomes increasingly difficult as budget shortfalls continue.

Councilman Brown hopes the attention shows the need for long-term fixes and innovative solutions to address deteriorating infrastructure in the city, the state and across the country.

“Look at how many of our federal roadways that run through the city, our state roadways that run through the city, how they are major commercial and residential arteries. Without the proper funding for those federal roadways, we’re not able to leverage a lot of the things we do within the neighborhoods and communities.”

Seven years after launching an artisan spice business, Thalia Noel found herself in need of some extra income.

But two months into her job search, the 42-year-old New Castle resident still wasn’t able to find work close to home.

“I turned looking for a job into a job,” Noel said. “I signed up with a bunch of job websites and was sending my résumé out every day, but couldn’t find something that fit.”

That changed after she signed up with Wilmington.TweetMyJobs.com, a web-based job search platform that uses Twitter, Facebook, email and text messages to connect job seekers with employers.

Immediately after creating her profile, Noel began receiving tweets about job openings, including a $13-an-hour part-time position at the Wilmington Convention and Visitors Bureau.

“I started on Monday,” she said, “and I’m so happy because it’s exactly the kind of job I was looking for.”

First launched in 2009, TweetMyJobs now has geographically specific hub sites in 10 locations throughout the country, including small urban centers like Columbia, South Carolina, and Allentown, Pennsylvania, as well as large cities like Atlanta and Houston, Texas.

The platform’s arrival in Wilmington two months ago was spearheaded by Third District City Councilman Darius Brown in response to the city’s high unemployment. According to the Delaware Department of Labor, the city’s unemployment rate for January was 6.9 percent, nearly half of where it was at the height of the recession, but still well above the countywide rate of 5.1 percent and the statewide rate of 5 percent.

“Part of the issue is the skills gap,” Brown said this week. “It’s difficult to match jobs that are available in Wilmington’s economic sector with the skills held by city residents.”

In addition to encouraging enrollment in various job-training organizations, Brown said he felt the city needed a tool that could match residents with local job opportunities, “ideally through an online recruiting platform, because that’s how people today – especially young people – connect with the world.”

The service is free for both job seekers and employers, neither of which have to be located in the city to use the site.

Those looking for work can quickly create a profile, enter the type of position they’re looking for, how they want to be notified of job openings and how far away from the city they’re willing to travel.

The TweetMyJobs app displays a map and notifies job seekers when they’re near a business with a job opening. (Photo: JENNIFER CORBETT/THE NEWS JOURNAL)

An app version of the site also displays a map and notifies job seekers when they’re near a business with a job opening.

While it’s still too early to fully gauge the Wilmington site’s success, the early indicators are promising, said Jae Sung, TweetMyJobs vice president of client success.

The local site began with 3,500 job postings and has nearly doubled that number in the past six weeks, with more than 100 new companies logging on in the past 30 days, he said.

The jobs being listed include entry-level positions with retail stores like Starbucks and CVS to more highly skilled positions with AstraZeneca, DuPont and Nemours.

More than 4,000 job seekers also have created profiles and collectively recorded 25,000 job views since January.

The site has no metric for determining how many people have actually found work through TweetMyJobs, but Brown said several companies have reported hiring candidates recommended by the service.

Michele Strayer, the human resources director for the industrial plastics manufacturer Franklin Fibre-Lamitex, said the site recently forwarded her two job candidates for a pair of full-time machine operator positions.

“Any tool an employer can use for recruiting is welcome, especially something like this that’s a little outside the box,” she said. “What I really like is that it can reach an audience that might not have access to a home computer, but they do have a cellphone. Now those people can get notifications about job listings even while riding the bus.”

Brown said he’s now working to ensure funding is available to keep the local TweetMyJobs site going.

Wilmington’s initial one-year contract with TweetMyJobs was funded with $35,000 from city coffers, as well as $5,000 contributions from New Castle County, the law firm Richards, Layton & Finger and Capital One.

“I’ve got to find that $50,000 every year, and I hope to raise as much as possible without city money, so hopefully there’s someone out there willing to write a check,” Brown said. “Small businesses and corporations spend thousands of dollars every year in marketing, so a contribution is really minimal compared to the expenses they face when doing marketing for a job opening.”

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About Darius

A former Wilmington City Council member and Delaware Democratic Party Board member, Darius has a record of working with fellow legislators and community leaders to represent working families and achieve opportunities for jobs, and access to healthcare.